Human retina showing the yellowish "horseshoe-shaped" atrophic region in the center, where the RPE cells have died, revealing the underlying choroid. J. AMBATI, B. GELFAND, AND M. HANSON
H. Kaneko et al., “DICER1 deficit induces Alu RNA toxicity in age-related macular degeneration,” Nature, 471:325-30, 2011. Free F1000 evaluation
Millions of people suffer from macular degeneration, an aging-associated disease that slowly destroys central vision. What causes it has long puzzled researchers, but now ophthalmologist Jayakrishna Ambati, at the University of Kentucky, and colleagues have found that sufferers lack an enzyme normally involved in the processing of microRNA, leading to an accumulation of double-stranded RNA and apoptosis in the retina’s pigmented epithelial cells.
Three years ago, while studying angiogenesis in the mouse eye, Ambati’s lab found that injecting short, double-helical fragments of RNA prevented new blood vessel growth. They then collected eyes of human patients who had suffered from macular degeneration, and, “to our surprise,” ...
